


Watergate

by Scarlet



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, MSR, X-Files revival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-04
Updated: 2015-08-04
Packaged: 2018-04-13 00:31:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4500888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scarlet/pseuds/Scarlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>21 years later, Mulder and Scully meet again in the Watergate Hotel parking lot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watergate

**Author's Note:**

> So, I wrote a little thing for the revival. I didn't use a beta this time around, so don't hesitate to let me know if you spot any typos or anything wonky. Thanks.

 

They meet in the early hours of the morning in the Watergate hotel parking lot. He watches her walk towards him in her strict charcoal suit, her black fuck-them heels clicking like bullets loaded inside a clip.

“When you told me you wanted to meet here, Mulder, I thought you’d lost your mind. Again.” 

He smirks. “We’re hiding in plain sight, Scully. This is the last place they’ll think of. Way too obvious."

She purses her lips, looks over her shoulder, then leans forward slightly to check the row of cars parked a few yards away. “Unless there is someone in their team who thinks exactly like you,” she tells him, straightening up. 

“Nobody thinks like me.” 

She lifts an eyebrow. “There is a name for that.” 

Mulder catches her waist on impulse. She is thinner than he remembers. Wire and steel. Gone are the curves of her youth he’d let himself appreciate on occasion. 

(But only on occasion. She hadn’t meant to him then what she means to him now.) 

“You have a name for everything, Dr. Scully,” he whispers before kissing her. He smiles against her lips when they part open, the Gordian knot pulsing behind his sternum loosening a little as her body softens against his. 

Did he ever take her for granted? Had he been too cavalier in his assumption that she would always be by his side? He’d learnt from an early age that in his world, people disappeared, people changed, people grew apart and moved on. 

They’d both disappeared, on several occasions, most of the time against their will, but against impossible odds, had always managed to find their way back to each other. And they weren’t the same people; their time spent at the Bureau had made sure of that. Countless beads of change he kept adding and subtracting on his mental abacus. 

Some bigger than others. 

_"If there’s liver in that pie, I’m not eating it.”_

_"We're not having candles in the bathroom."_

_“Don’t say his name. Just… don’t.”_

And they had grown apart, slowly, inexorably. The Truth was a needy mistress, and it had been too late when he realized this ménage à trois no longer suited her. She’d spent more and more time at the hospital. He’d spent more and more time away, following leads that rarely panned out. And yet, on those nights they found themselves home at the same time, she’d still eagerly responded to his touch, lulling him into believing that despite the fact they spoke less and less to one another, everything was fine. Her drawn out moans as he moved inside her, the red contrails her nails left on his back were proof she’d missed him, rather than evidence she was committing the feel of his body to memory.   
  
Which is why, seeing her suitcases by the door on that crisp spring Sunday morning, had come as a shock. 

_“I need time to figure things out.”_

_“How much time?”_

_“I don’t know.”_

_“Can we talk about this?”_

_“Yes, we can, but not now.”_

She’d called him every night the first few weeks. Gave him her new address, asking him about the food he ate, reminding him about bills. Small talk. Then her calls had dwindled to three times a week, then once a week. Until one day she’d called to inform him she was moving back to DC. Because she wanted to be closer to her mother and because Skinner had asked her to come back to the FBI. There was an opening for a teaching position at Quantico. She would no longer be working with dying kids, and, as far as he was concerned, this was a very good thing. He'd never quite understood why she'd chosen this career path in the first place. Penance, probably. For William. Catholic guilt ran deep within her.   
  
He’d wished her luck. There had been a long silence on her end, and he thought for a moment she was finally going to really talk to him. But in the end, she’d just thanked him and had hung up.

He never called her. She needed time. He was giving it to her. And truth be told, he was hurt. 

Her next call, a few weeks later, had been to tell him she’d met someone. A guy called Tad O’Malley, who was an anchor for an internet network. She’d said he had information he would want to hear about. She’d been reluctant to say more over the phone, so their conversation had been brief. When he’d put the phone down, he’d wondered yet again where they stood with one another and what exactly her level of involvement with this Tad person was. He’d googled him. Good looking, clean cut WASP media type with a politician smile. Hard to tell if Scully could be charmed by someone like that. The men in her life - well, the ones he knew about - didn’t really give him a solid point of reference. An older professor during her medical studies, an academy instructor, a tattooed psycho. His train of thoughts had derailed as he’d remembered his lips wetly tracing the curled snake on her lower back, his fingers pushing hard between her legs as she shook underneath him, biting on a white pillow to smother her cries. He’d shut down his laptop and had gone for a run. 

Had she reached the ‘moving on’ phase? He hoped not, but at the same time, he doubted there was an happily ever after for people like them. 

Maybe he reminded her too much of the dark times in her past. Maybe it was time to let go. Maybe he should let her be happy with someone else. 

But none of this matters right now, because her fingers are clutching the lapels of his jacket, her tongue is deep in his mouth and time has just stopped being a universal invariant. 

Until she breaks the kiss. “Damn it, Mulder,” she breathes out, leaning her forehead against his. 

He strokes her shoulders, doesn’t say anything. 

She pulls away, takes a few steps back. “We don’t have much time,” she points out. 

Right. He shoves his hands in his pockets. “What's up with Tad?" 

A flash of irritation flares in her eyes. “Mulder...” 

“It’s a simple question Scully.” He is being an ass and he knows it. But their too brief kiss has peeled the scab from the wound and it hurts like hell. 

She smooths the sides of her jacket, shakes her head. “I’m not playing this game with you, Mulder. You ask me about the intelligence I’ve gathered. You ask me about the data I’ve secured. You do not play the jealous boyfriend.” 

His fingers encounter a sunflower seed in one of his pocket. He fishes it out, pops it in his mouth. “I’m not your boyfriend, Scully.” 

“That’s right, you’re not. Do you want to hear what I have to say or should I just leave now?” 

He worries the shell between his teeth before spitting it out. She never had any patience for his bullshit. Nice to see some things don’t change. He shrugs. “Go ahead.” 

She tells him about her findings and it dawns on him as she speaks that she never stopped being on his side, never stopped fighting for what he believes -- no, strike that, what _they_ believe in. She hadn’t left him to start a new life in blissful oblivion of their past, like he’d thought. She did leave, for reasons they had yet to discuss, but had kept her eyes and ears opened. And from what she was saying, it sounded like it was paying off. He suddenly feels bad for not having given her more credit. 

Maybe Tad O’Malley is nothing more to her than a convenient source of information. 

Maybe. 

“Well? What do you think?” She asks him once she’s done. 

He nods. “I’d say this warrants further investigation.” 

“I’m glad you think so,” she tells him evenly. 

“Did you tell Skinner?” 

“I have. He wants to see you.” 

“The big guy misses me, uh?” 

“You can ask him when you see him.” She takes a quick glance at her watch. “I have to go.” 

He tucks his hands firmly in the back pockets of his jeans. He won't be able to let her go if he touches her again.  

Her eyes scan their surroundings. “Last time we met here, you were on your way to chase little green men in Puerto Rico.” 

“Simpler times,” he says, with a nonchalance he doesn’t feel. 

The ghost of a smile curves her lips. “Did you forget the Blue Berets shooting at us, while you drove us out of the jungle?” 

He holds her gaze. “I haven’t forgotten a single thing, Scully.” 

She takes a couple of steps towards him, runs her fingers in his hair. “I know,” she says, her voice rough with emotion.  

He feels her other hand briefly brush his waist. “I’ll see you soon, Mulder.” 

He leans against the concrete pillar behind him, closes his eyes, listens to her footsteps fade away. The air around him smells of dust and stale gasoline.

He sighs, digs in his pockets for his car keys, feels something unfamiliar against his fingers. 

In his palm, the little gold cross catches the dim light. 

He smiles. 


End file.
